This is a letter of recommendation for my creativity coach Sara
I have had the honor of working with her for 4 years, and it is my intention to write a post so that other creative thinkers find her.

“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” – Rilke

Sara writes about the assemblage Cherry Love: 
“This sweet and juicy couple of cherries are poised on separate platforms (one grounded in roots, the other in flow) but their stems arc toward each other in a protective caring relationship.”
And it is that kind of relationship I have learned to appreciate, validate, and ultimately learned to understand as the only available relationship I am prepared to have, that I would call one of the most important fruits of our work together.

That although there are many reasons, why I have few longterm relationships in any area of my life, that it ultimately is because the cherry love just wasn’t there.
I ve had people coming over to my platform, telling me what to do.
I have seen platforms not being rooted in earth, nor flow.
I ve had people acting from a place of me needing to be saved from my platform, as well as people reaching out from a place of me needing to save them.
I’ve seen people eyeing me out if I was a good-enough candidate to unite their platform with mine, either professionally, in friendships, and of course, in love relationships.

I have left them all.
And anybody who is in my life, can be certain that if they cross a line somewhere there, my priority will be in keeping our platforms separated.
Always.
And when that fails, when I have failed in doing that, then it leaves me no option but to sever ties.

Because I do not believe in the union of the two cherries.
I believe only in two sovereign cherries,  who CHOOSE to reach out their stems asking:
“Do you want to play?”
“How is Friday for you?”
Two cherries asking consent, over and over.
Two cherries who never use, “abuse” what they built in the past, as an excuse to cut corners in connecting and in communicating.

Every time my 6 time coaching package with Sara expires, I say:
“I would love to keep working with you. Is that okay for you?”
And although my heart sinks at the thought of her saying No, I know it is giving somebody else the freedom to say No, that is the essence of any good relationship.
And it is the ability to be okay with that No, that is the essence of being good with yourself.

Because Sara is good being on her platform, she can let me be good on mine.
And where other’s irritation with my rants, my endless streams of thoughts, my multitude of passions, and in particular with my disruptive sexuality, rebelliousness, and ruthless demand to be heard in exactly what it is I say, and to not bring that bitch back to “but now let’s get practical”;
And to not bother me with your barely suppressed irritation of my wordiness, or kill it by giving me your homework assignment.
Do not betray my trust by measuring me by standards we never agreed on.

But see me.
See me on my platform, pit and all, stem and all, shining and glowing;
Or turning red as a pepper from all the things that frustrate me!
And BE on your own platform and to THEN have something insanely profound to say?
That is Sara.

I have often asked her how it is possible that she has succeeded where almost no one I know has been able to hold the space in situations like that. Or if they have, it was definitely not for such a long period of time.
And although she has shared that she came from “a large, intense family in Albuquerque New Mexico,”  (source, https://www.salteeacademy.com/aboutsara)
I attribute her groundedness and strength to her Creative Constellation Program:
A course where you can understand how you are as a creative.

The course is a joy for many reasons;
It’s profound!
Insightful.
Visually striking, with Sara’s assemblage art.
The Creative Constellation Program is like advanced astrology for creatives, where you get a powerful understanding of who you are as a creative, and how all aspects of yourself fit into the whole.
How, just like stars, those different aspects actually work in conjunction.

But the reason I think Sara Saltee has been such a great coach to me, is because the framework she created for The Creative Constellation Program, means that she has gone very far into the world of ideas and abstract concepts.
When you rage, when you think, when you flow, when you feel you’re onto something, and you’re almost there, and you know you need to keep following the white rabbit because otherwise you may never get this trail of thought again!
Then Sara knows where you are.
Because Sara, has a map.
Created it herself.

Where others, almost inevitably, fall off their map once you unleash your true line of thinking, once you show who you are as a thinker – and you are met with their professional or personal demand that you box that shit up and only tell the conclusion;
That you stick to their program, or to the job description;
Or that you pick a frickin’ lane! – 
Then Sara does none of those things.

Sara, hears you out and has SMART things to say!

Now if you made it all the way down here, and think you too may be in need of someone who meets you at your level, and who does not try to tell you how to live your life on your platform;
Who does not panic when you show them who you really are;
Someone who is deeply rooted in her values, who knows how to navigate in the abstract world of ideas, and who coaches from the solitude of her own platform without trying to influence what you do on yours;

Who coaches from a deep understanding that you two are equal,
and therefor respect each other, and keep asking the other for consent before you take the next step. And if you are able to hold yourself up so she can say no;

Then Sara Saltee is your coach.